Three leading Swedish newspapers and the national broadcaster carried a cartoon depicting Muhammad with a dog's body after an alleged plot to murder the artist who drew it was unveiled in the Republic of Ireland.

The threat to Lars Vilks was a threat against all Swedes, the country's biggest daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, proclaimed, adding that the new year axe attack on a Danish cartoonist for drawing the Prophet meant that Scandinavian values of openness were being assaulted.

The drawing by Mr Vilks was published yesterday in the Stockholm-based Dagens Nyheter and Expressen newspapers and the Malmo daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet, in defence of one of the cornerstones of Sweden's constitution. This states that Swedes have the right to freedom of speech and cannot be restrained from the lawful expression of their views.

Gunilla Herlitz, the Dagens Nyheter editor-in-chief, defended the reprinting of the cartoon as a legitimate part of the story of the day. I believe that, in this case, the cartoon is a part of the news and therefore we would like to show the readers what this is all about. But the cartoon is published in a context and is not the leading picture on the page.

An Egyptian court in the southern city of Assuit has acquitted four Muslims accused of killing 61-year-old Farouk Attallah on October 19, 2009.

This has been reported by Mary Abdelmassih in a story for the Assyrian International News Agency who said, In broad daylight and in full view of witnesses, the killers fired 31 bullets to his head before beheading him, in the busy village market place of Attaleen. The dead body was then dragged in the street, accompanied by shouts of victory.

The judge presiding over the court on February 22, said that he was not satisfied that the testimony of the witnesses established that the imprisoned men were the killers. After the acquittal of Mohamad, Ashraf, Osama and Ahmad Hassouna, there was jubilation in the court room, with shouts of 'Allah is Great' and congratulations from all Muslims, including members of the state security forces who were present.

She said that Christians were enraged over the acquittal, since similar cases would result in life imprisonment or execution for a Copt if the victim was a Muslim and came as another wake-up call to many Copts in Egypt.

According to Peter Sarwar, the plaintiff's attorney who told Mariam Ragy of Katiba Tibia Coptic site, It sends a clear message that Coptic blood is extremely cheap. This acquittal will make permanent the present culture of impunity enjoyed by Muslim aggressors against Copts.

Sarwat asserted that he will appeal the ruling. We cannot remain silent over this verdict as it has very serious implications for all Copts in Egypt. He added: It is not safe for Copts now, as any Muslims who wants to get rid of a Copt, would kill him, knowing well that in the end he will be acquitted.

Two people have been reported killed in riots against Humanist writer Taslima Nasrin in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The rioters were protesting supposed anti-Islamic statements made in a local newspaper article attributed to Nasrin.

According to local news reports, thousands of Muslims took to the streets in the town of Shimoga, vandalising shops and damaging vehicles. The rioters were protesting an article in Kannada Prabha, a daily newspaper in Karnataka. The riots subsequently spread to neighbouring areas and were joined by Hindu groups. A group of masked men set fire to the offices of Kannada Prabha and the offices of another newspaper. According to reports from the BBC, the riots led to 50 arrests and injuries to about 50 people.

The Kannada Prabha article, which was printed without Taslima's knowledge, criticized the traditional Muslim veil, describing it as a symbol of women's oppression.

A California state senator who has been a staunch opponent of homosexual rights was forced to admit that he himself is gay.

Republican lawmaker Roy Ashburn, a divorced conservative Roman Catholic, came out on KERN radio, saying he felt compelled to address rumours that he had visited a gay nightclub near the Capitol before his arrest last week for drunk driving.

I am gay. And so, those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long.

Ashburn has consistently voted against gay rights measures since he was elected to the state Assembly in 1996. He has said those votes reflected the way constituents in his district wanted him to vote.

A statement issued after Ashburn's arrest said: I am deeply sorry for my actions and offer no excuses for my poor judgement. I accept complete responsibility for my conduct and am prepared to accept the consequences of what I did.

Senator Ashburn was arrested after leaving Faces, a gay nightclub in midtown Sacramento, according to cbs13.com.

Writing on The Gospel According to Hate, (ex) Father Tom said:

What happens when a good Catholic, married father of four, grandfather of two, tea-bagger, Reagan lover, Republican, senator, and staunch opponent of gay rights takes a state-issued vehicle out for a spin after dark on your tax dollars?

Ding! Ding! Ding! He goes to a Sacramento gay bar (appropriately named Faces), gets trashed, picks up a trick, drives away drunk, swerves all over the road, gets pulled over, and blows a whopping .14 into the breathalyser.

My dear heretics, it's time to canonize another conservative Catholic and Republican anti-gay hypocrite.

Senator Roy-Toy has voted against every piece of civil, immigration, labor, LGBT, and women's rights legislation since being elected, but that didn't stop him from having his boys on the side.

Seven people have been arrested in the Irish Republic over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist for depicting Muhammad, police say.

The four men and three women are all Muslim immigrants, according to media reports, though a police statement did not confirm this.

Cartoonist Lars Vilks had depicted Muhammad with the body of a dog in the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper.

In 2007 a group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq offered a $100,000 reward for killing Vilks, and a 50% bonus if he was slaughtered like a lamb by having his throat cut.

Irish police said the seven suspects were arrested after an investigation into a conspiracy to murder an individual in another jurisdiction, a probe that also involved police in the US and other European countries.

Ireland's RTE news network said those in custody were originally refugees from Morocco and Yemen, but had gained asylum and were in the Republic of Ireland legally.

Vilks was quoted as saying he was unfazed by the arrests, which he said he thought could be linked to two death threats he had received by telephone in January.

Vilks has been under police protection in Sweden since threats were made against his life. The Vilks controversy arose in 2007, when his entry in an arts project was published by the newspaper. It pictured a dog with the head of a bearded man in a turban.

A leading Roman Catholic theologian has linked clerical sex abuse with priestly celibacy, blaming the Church's uptight views on sex for child abuse scandals in Germany, Ireland and the US.

Father Hans Kung, President of the Global Ethic Foundation and professor emeritus at the University of Tübingen in Germany, said that the Church's attitude was also revealed in its opposition to birth control.

Robert Zollitsch, Archbishop of Freiburg and head of the German bishops' conference, branded clerical abuse outrageous and begged forgiveness from the victims but denied any link between abuse and celibacy.

Writing in The Tablet, Father Kung, who in 1979 was stripped of his licence to teach Catholic theology after he rejected the doctrine of Papal infallibility, welcomed the apology but described the denials of any link between abuse, celibacy and other teaching as erroneous.

He said that it was the case that abuse was found also in families, schools and other churches. But he asked: Why is it so prevalent in the Catholic Church under celibate leadership? He said that celibacy was not the only cause of the misconduct but described it as the most important and structurally the most decisive expression of the Church's uptight attitude to sex.

Citing the New Testament, he says that Jesus and St Paul practised celibacy but allowed full freedom in this matter to each individual. St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians wrote: Because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

Father Kung said: Compulsory celibacy is the principal reason for today's catastrophic shortage of priests, for the fatal neglect of eucharistic celebration, and for the tragic breakdown of personal pastoral ministry in many places.

He argues that there are two simple solutions to the shortage of priests: Abolition of the celibacy rule, the root of all these evils, and the admission of women to ordination. The bishops know this, but they do not have the courage to say it in public.

Kuwait's female MPs have condemned a call to bar women from international sport competitions as an attempt by an Islamist-dominated parliamentary committee to suppress women's rights.

Kuwait's National Assembly has a five-member Committee To Study Negative Phenomena Alien to Kuwaiti Society. They met with the minister of social affairs and labour, Mohammed al Afasi, to discuss women's participation in sport.

One of the committee's members, Jamaan al Harbash, said: We have sent out a clear message that such participation runs counter to Sharia provisions and we have called for their suspension.

But Aseel al Awadhi, one of the four women to win a seat in parliament last year, said last week: This is a continuous and systematic attempt by the Islamist lobby within parliament to suppress women's right to participate in the public domain.

Dozens of bodies lined the dusty streets of three Christian villages in northern Nigeria yesterday. Other victims of Sunday morning's Muslim rampage were jammed into a local morgue, the limbs of slaughtered children tangled in a grotesque mess.

Officials estimate that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids by Muslim gangs near Jos, the city that bestrides Nigeria's Christian-Muslim fault line.

Witnesses said gangs waited at main entry points to the villages while others went from house to house, setting the homes on fire. Those who fled were killed at the exit points. Others were slaughtered after being caught in animal traps and nets as they ran in the dark.

Ben Kwashi, Anglican Archbishop of Jos, said he visited one of three villages engulfed by the violence. I could see kids from age zero to teenagers, all butchered from the back, macheted in their necks, their heads. Deep cuts in the mouths of babies. The stench. People wailing and crying, he said.

Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, ordered troops into the riot-affected area to confront and defeat these roving bands of killers, he said in a statement. Last night he sacked Sarki Mukhtar, the national security adviser, a powerful figure in the inner circle of the ailing President, Umaru Yar'Adua.

A secular Muslim woman councillor has been forced to dress more conservatively after receiving death threats and sexually harassing phone calls from members of her own community.

Shiria Khatun has called in the police over the sinister calls in which threats were made not only against her, but also her four young children. In one they warned they would dig up parents' graves and bury her there instead.

The Labour councillor in the borough of Tower Hamlets is considered one of the area's most progressive politicians. She was elected in 2006, worked for Ken Livingstone as a transport adviser at London's City Hall and frequently campaigns for more Muslim women to enter politics.

However, over the past year she has been the victim of a harassment campaign. She has been bombarded with anonymous calls and even followed home. At first she was too embarrassed to call the police, but when the threats, mostly made in the Bangladeshi dialect Sylheti, targeted her family she decided to act.

She said: As a councillor I'm meant to be a strong woman and I didn't want to show that I was bothered, but it's gone too far. They're really disgusting. They would talk about my Western clothes, my tight jeans and my body parts.

Following the calls, she started wearing more loose-fitting traditional Asian clothes and glasses instead of contact lenses to be taken more seriously. I didn't even realise that I was giving into them, but my skirts started getting longer and the whole thing left me demoralised.

38 staff members of the Danish daily Politiken issued a letter on Saturday saying they are against the newspaper's apology for offending Muslims by reprinting the turban bomb Mohammed cartoon.

In a letter published in the newspaper, the editorial staff said Politiken has nothing to apologize for. The settlement gives the impression that we regret our journalism, something there is no basis for whatsoever, they wrote, saying democratic journalism entails describing reality as precisely as possible and to encourage social debate. They also said they fear the settlement could interfere with their editorial freedom.

Politiken, which has around 200 staff members, last week apologized for offending Muslims with the 2008 reprint but did not apologize for reprinting the cartoon.

Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org.

They signed a contract for a billion years — in keeping with the church's belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most.

But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a Kafkaesque journey that they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars it said they owed for courses and counseling, and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them.

Why did we work so hard for this organization, Ms. Collbran said, and why did it feel so wrong in the end? We just didn't understand.

The Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate's misleadingly named freedoms committee announced its full support for Al-Masry Al-Youm's columnist, Sahar El-Ga'ara, in her call for shutting down and prosecuting the authors of blogs that she said preach atheism and disrespect religions.

El-Ga'ara wrote a column titled Complaint to the Prosecutor General, in Al-Masry Al-Youm, condemning three specific blogs: Do the rules and regulations of publishing apply to the internet? I don't think so. Therefore, the internet is turning into a lethal weapon in the hands of organizations with fanatical ideologies and homosexuals.

Mohamed Abdel Qudous, head of the 'freedoms' committee, told Daily News Egypt, We are supporting Sahar El-Ga'ara for two main reasons. First, because we reject atheism, if a person wants to be an atheist he can be but he can't preach it. The second reason is because of the foul language and insults directed at her on the internet.

Freedom of expression has its limits; a person cannot preach atheism or insult the three divine religions. This is not accepted anywhere in the world, claimed Abdel Qudous.

A little over a year ago, Amarillo's swingers geared up for their New Year's Eve party at Route 66 Party and Event Rental, a downtown business owned by a prominent couple, Mac and Monica Mead.

Few in this conservative, church-heavy city knew about the weekend parties, and the swingers liked it that way. Everybody in the lifestyle has to be very, very discreet, says Mac.

The Meads enforced strict rules at the members-only club: no drugs, no single men, no audio-visual equipment. Most couples, even ones who had been in the lifestyle for years, are on a first-name basis only. The location of the club is (or was) to be kept strictly private. So imagine the swingers' surprise when they arrived at their New Year's Eve bash to find two dozen protesters, local media in tow, holding signs and singing songs. This was a most unwelcome coming-out party.

Some protesters, mostly young men in their teens and early 20s, wore black hoodies and military fatigues. The men, Amarillo would soon learn, were foot soldiers of Repent Amarillo, a new, militant evangelical group that advertises itself as the Special Forces of spiritual warfare. Their leader, David Grisham, a security guard at nuclear-bomb facility Pantex who moonlights as a pastor, explained the action. We're here to shine the light on this darkness, Grisham told the Amarillo Globe-News. I don't think Amarillo knew about this place. This is adultery. This is wrong. There's no telling how many venereal diseases get spread, how many abortions. The goal, Grisham says, was not just to save the swingers' souls, but to shut the club down.

For the past year, this Bible Belt city of 200,000 has been consumed by a culture clash between Repent Amarillo and their targets, a list that includes everything from gay bars to liberal churches. For the Route 66 swingers, Grisham's special forces have been a near-constant presence. Jobs have been lost, families estranged, assault charges filed and businesses shuttered. So far, no public official has stood up to defend these businesses, which operate legally. To the contrary, Repent Amarillo has managed to turn the city's own laws and employees into an effective weapon. Amarillo, it turns out, doesn't have the stomach to stick up for gays, swingers, strippers or even Unitarians. Absent a peacekeeper, the conflict might end up being settled the old-fashioned way, frontier-style. This will not end until somebody gets hurt, either us or them, one swinger warns.

Repent has made it clear that its crusade won't end with the swingers. Last January, community theater group Avenue 10 was set to open Bent, a play about the persecution of homosexuals during Nazi Germany. The day before opening night, the fire marshal, police and code enforcers showed up, tipped off by a Repent associate, according to Sirc Michaels, co-founder of the theater. Avenue 10 didn't have the right permit for holding events, and the space was shut down.

What's next for Repent? They've posted a Warfare Map on the group's Web site. The map includes establishments like gay bars, strip clubs and porn shops, but also the Wildcat Bluff Nature Center. Repent believes the 600-acre prairie park's Walmart-funded Earth Circle, used for lectures, is a Mecca for witches and pagans. Also on the list are The 806 coffeehouse (a hangout for artists and counterculture types), the Islamic Center of Amarillo (Allah is a false god), and compromised churches like Polk Street Methodist (gay-friendly).

A Scottish bar that has undergone a re-branding exercise has caused 'outrage' among some of the local Muslim community who say it is disrespectful to the Islamic faith.

The Dundee establishment, which was formerly known as Bar Rio, has recently reopened as Medina Bar and Grill in the city's Nethergate.

Medina is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia and is the second holiest site in the Islamic faith behind Mecca.

One senior member of Dundee's Central Mosque said the use of the Medina name in a place serving alcohol was disrespectful. Mohammed Bashir Chohan, chairman of the Dundee Islamic Society, said: People are upset about it because Medina is a holy city in Islam. It does hurt when somebody misuses the name, especially if they are going to sell liquor.

A spokesman for Medina said there was no offence intended in the bar's new name. He said: The designer of the bar came to us with a number of different names. Medina Bar & Grill was one of them. The bar has a Moroccan theme and, as far as we were told, medina also means the market hustle-bustle of an old quarter of a north African city. There was no intended link to the second holiest city of Islam, and there was absolutely no offence intended.

A 'court' in Punjab, have convicted a Christian couple, Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi, to 25 years in prison.

According to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), Judge Ajmal Hussein convicted the couple for touching the Koran without washing their hands.

Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi were released on bail last January, but were re-arrested after the judge ruled against them.

The incident, which dates back to December 2008, unleashed the fury of Muslim extremists who put pressure on police. Unconfirmed reports suggest that extremists paid off police agents to discover new evidence to justify the sentence.

At the end of the police investigation, husband and wife were charged with blasphemy. The blasphemy law is the harshest tool for religious repression available in Pakistan. It was adopted in 1986 by then dictator Zia ul-Haq to protect Islam and Muhammad, from attacks and insults.

CLAAS announced that it was filing an appeal with the High Court in Lahore to have the 25-year sentence against Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi overturned

The Aceh office of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission has proposed a draft of the province's broadcasting qanun , or bylaw, that will be used as a standard to censor films, TV and programs to ensure they adhere to Islamic law.

The draft, however, received strong opposition from the local branch of the Independent Journalists Association (AJI), which objected on the grounds that the proposed measure violated press freedom laws.

Mukhtaruddin Yakob, head of the local branch of the AJI, said the draft had been submitted at the end of January to the governor's office for preliminary review: The proposed qanun is inconsistent with the [national] Press Law and the Broadcasting Law, he told the Jakarta Globe.

Mukhtaruddin said the qanun would require inappropriate censorship of the program content of broadcasters operating in the staunchly Islamic province.

The proposed bylaw would require radio and television stations to broadcast live the obligatory weekly prayer on Fridays and prohibit them from airing crime reconstructions, obscene material and sexual harassment cases.

It also bans broadcasters from airing fund-raising efforts that are not in the Muslims' interests, Mukhtaruddin said.

Under the qanun, movies, television shows (including soap operas and documentaries) and commercials would be subject to censorship by the Aceh Film Censorship Board and Aceh Film Advisory Board (Bapfida).

Gaza's Islamic Hamas government has banned men from working in women's hair salons. It is the latest step in a campaign to impose strict Islamic customs on Gaza's 1.5 million people.

Hamas police said in a statement on their website that those who violated the ban would face legal consequences.

A Saudi Arabian woman, Sawsan Salim, has been sentenced to 300 lashings and one and a half years in prison for filing harassment complaints about government officials and appearing in court without a male guardian present.

In 2007, Salim filed 118 harassment complaints against local officials, who allegedly mistreated her when she appeared in their offices unchaperoned, according to Business Week. Salim appeared without a male guardian because her husband, her sole male family member, was in prison at the time. She initially approached a local court in 2004, when she sought help to release her husband from prison.

The legal guardianship system in Saudi Arabia requires that women, both minors and adults, must be accompanied by a male guardian outside the home. If women wish to conduct themselves in public business, work, or to drive, they must obtain permission from or be accompanied by their male guardian, who may be her husband, father, brother, or even a minor son, according to Human Rights Watch.

The Dutch anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders arrives in Britain on the crest of an electoral triumph that could mean him entering government in June.

Wilders's Freedom Party made big gains in Dutch local elections this week, widely regarded as a dress rehearsal for the national poll on June 9.

He has been invited to the House of Lords by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the UKIP leader, to show his controversial film Fitna.

The Freedom Party, founded by Mr Wilders in 2005, won in the town of Almere, near Amsterdam, and came second in The Hague, the only two places in which it fielded a candidate out of 394 cities and towns, aiming for maximum impact with minimum campaigning. Related Links

Opinion polls show Wilders vying for the national lead with the Christian Democrats, whose coalition Government collapsed last month after the Labour Party walked out in a row over keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan.

Update: Support, protests and arrests as Wilders visits parliament

6th March 2010. Based on article from thescotsman.scotsman.com

The visit of Dutch politician Geert Wilders sparked angry scenes outside parliament. The controversial Dutchman visited London to show his anti-Islamic film Fitna at the House of Lords.

About 200 members of the anti-Muslim English Defence League (EDL) marched down Millbank in support of Wilders.

Demonstrators, taking part in a counter-protest, chanted Nazi scum, off our streets as the EDL supporters gathered outside parliament, but the two groups were kept apart by lines of police officers. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said about 50 people, mostly taking part in the counter-protest organised by the group Unite Against Fascism, were arrested.

Wilders said: Islamism and democracy are incompatible. The more Islamism we have, the more freedom we will lose, and this is something worth fighting for. Wilders also called for an end to immigration to Europe from Islamic countries, but said Muslims who agreed to obey the law of the land would be welcome to stay.

And he pledged that, if he were elected Dutch prime minister, he would seek to introduce a first amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech: The right of freedom of speech is especially to listen to someone who is saying something you don't want to hear.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has called for a complete ban on condom ads in the country, claiming that condoms only imperil the morality of the youth.

In a statement, CBCP President Nereo Odchimar said the condom business is a multimillion dollar industry that heavily targets the adolescent market, at the expense of morality and family life.

Condom advertisements should be banned in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, and public places, as they desensitize the youth's delicate conscience and weaken their moral fiber as future parents, Odchimar said in a statement on the CBCP website.

The CBCP president questioned the Philippine government's thrust to promote condom use to combat the rising number of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) cases in the country. He said condoms should be required to have warning labels that say Condoms may fail to protect from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Odchimar said it was unjust for government to use the money of Catholic taxpayers for purposes that are against their moral beliefs. He said the funding and effort involved in promoting condoms should rather be used to fight diseases that afflict millions of people in the country each year, such as diarrhea, bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, cancer, hypertension and influenza.

By the way, I've just invented blasphemy Thought you'd like a bit of fun

A campaigning atheist who left leaflets mocking Jesus Christ, the Pope and the Koran in the prayer room of an international airport has gone on trial charged with religious harassment.

The materials left by Harry Taylor at Liverpool's John Lennon airport included one image showed a smiling Christ on the cross next to an advert for a brand of no nails glue. In another, Islamic suicide bombers at the gates of paradise are told: Stop, stop, we've run out of virgins.

A further cartoon showed two Muslims holding a placard demanding equality with the caption: Not for women or gays, obviously.

Taylor, a self-styled philosophy tutor, denied bearing a grudge against people of faith and said he was only trying to convert believers to atheism. He said: The airport is named after John Lennon and his views on religion were pretty much the same as mine. I thought that it was an insult to his memory to have a prayer room in the airport.

The leaflets were discovered by Nicky Lees, the airport chaplain, who told the court she felt deeply offended and insulted by their contents. [But didn't mention feeling threatened].

Outlining the case against Taylor, prosecutor Neville Biddle said that he had gone beyond freedom of expression by leaving the insulting, threatening and abusive images in a room used for worship. He said: Of course people have a right to speak freely and have a right to insult people. It is one of the most important rights we have and it must be jealously guarded...BUT...it is a right not without some prescription. Mr Taylor exceeded that right.

The defendant from Salford, Greater Manchester is charged with three counts of religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress under the Crime and Disorder Act. The alleged offences took place on separate dates in November and December 2008.

Taylor denied the charges and said it was preposterous to suggest that people could be incited to violence by the cartoons. He said: I am not hostile to religious people but I am hostile to religion. He told the court that he adapted cartoons cut out of newspaper and magazines like Private Eye and added captions of his own.

The images shown to the jury included a drawing of the Pope with a condom on his finger, and a picture of a woman kneeling in front of a Catholic priest captioned with a crude pun. In another image sausages were were labelled as The Koran.

The trial continues.

Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006

Based on article from opsi.gov.uk

29A Meaning of “religious hatred”

In this Part “religious hatred” means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.
Acts intended to stir up religious hatred

29B Use of words or behaviour or display of written material

(1) A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.

29C Publishing or distributing written material

(1) A person who publishes or distributes written material which is threatening is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.

29J Protection of freedom of expression

Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.

Update: A Disgraceful Verdict

5th March 2010. Based on article from liverpooldailypost.co.uk

The jury of ten women and two men, at Liverpool Crown Court took just 15 minutes to find Harry Taylor guilt of religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress after viewing the grossly abusive and insulting images in court.

Harry Taylor is now on bail awaiting sentencing on 23 April. Religiously aggravated offences carry a potential seven-year prison term.

The National Secular Society have supported Taylor. They claim that new laws dealing with religiously aggravated offences amount to a blasphemy law in another guise.

Terry Sanderson, president of the society, said: This is a disgraceful verdict, but an inevitable one under this pernicious law. It seems incredible in the 21st Century that you might be sent to prison because someone is 'offended' by your views on their religion . . . Mr Taylor struck me as slightly eccentric and he acted in a provocative way, challenging the necessity for the prayer room. He didn't cause any damage and he didn't harm anything, nor was he threatening or abusive. Yet he might still end up behind bars because some Christian has decided they are offended.

In a multicultural society, none of us should have the legal right not to be offended. This law needs to be re-examined urgently.

A poster advertising a day of international Christian prayer was banned from a library - in case it 'offended' people of other religions.

Staff said council policy prevented them from displaying the poster for Women's World Day of Prayer.

But the decision to turn down a churchgoer's request to put it up at Kayll Road Library, Sunderland, has been condemned by leaders of all faiths in the city.

Adbur Rouf, of Sunderland Mosque, said it was hard for him to understand how anyone could find the poster offensive. Founder and chairman of Sunderland Sikh Association, Manjit Chema, said: This is not the way. This sort of thing creates divides and ghettos of different communities.

Reverend Peter Robson, whose parishioner at St Gabriel's Church wanted to put the poster up, said: I really find it hard to understand. It's just a notice - we're not trying to force people to go along.

The only religious symbol on the poster in question was the Women's World Day of Prayer international logo. The design comprises arrows from the four points of the compass, four figures kneeling in prayer, the Celtic cross and a circle representing the world and unity through all diversity.

Sunderland Council says it is reviewing its guidelines in light of the row. Ron Odunaiya, Executive Director of City Services said: We regret that on this occasion a decision was taken not to display the poster and we fully accept that the poster would not have caused any concern to other individuals. We will be reviewing our guidelines to ensure this situation is not repeated. Sunderland Public Libraries would be happy to display the poster at any of its service points as space permits. We apologise for any upset that this decision may have caused the customer.

An Italian football coach has been banned for taking God's name in vain

According to the disciplinary watchdog of the Italian football league, the Verona club's coach proffered a blasphemous expression that was to make him the first victim of a zero-tolerance policy on irreverence.

Di Carlo, whose side narrowly avoided relegation last season, was banned from the touchline for a game after the outburst.

The Italian federation, Federcalcio, decided last month that the time had come for disciplinary action to be taken against players and coaches heard taking God's name in vain. The president, Giancarlo Abete, declared it would intervene with official decisions to make clear that blasphemy is within the definition of 'offensive, insulting or abusive language' in the rules [that warrant sending-off].

Chievo's coach was not the only one caught out; one of his players, Michele Marcolini, was deemed to have said God as he left the field after a red card.

Last Monday at the University of Texas at San Antonio, a campus atheist group, Atheist Agenda, began their fifth annual Smut for Smut campaign. For three days Atheist Agenda members will give students pornographic magazines in exchange for Bibles or other religious texts.

Leaders of the Atheist Agenda justify their campaign by arguing that, Religious books contain violence, spark religious wars, advocate for the mistreatment of women and are therefore no better than pornography.

As to be expected, Christian students across campus are understandably offended and many have begun protesting the Atheist Agenda's campaign, which even they themselves admit is mostly a publicity stunt. It does bring to light, however, and interesting question: How is it that a holy book, filled with God's message to His people and foundational to the Christian faith, is considered by others to be no better than pornography?